I Know I Talk Every Now And Then About All The Changes That The LOTR Trilogy Did That I Wish They Hadn't

I know I talk every now and then about all the changes that the LOTR trilogy did that I wish they hadn't and that make me froth at the mouth. So I thought, for a change, I'd talk about something in the books that I, personally, would alter if I got to make an adaptation of LOTR. (Now, this is pretending that I'd basically have infinite time to put everything I want into it and wouldn't have to concern myself with how to get it into a given timeframe. But I do think that you could probably get this to fit even into something limited like a movie trilogy if you wanted to and were clever about it)

I would make Boromir talk about Faramir and Denethor more. In the books, iirc he only really brings them up during the Council of Elrond, as he explains who he is and what he's doing in Rivendell, and I'm not actually 100% certain if he mentions Faramir by name or if he refers to him only as his brother. Beyond that, as far as I remember, he really pretty much just talks about Gondor as a country and its people in general, not really Faramir or Denethor specifically. At least with Faramir, it's kinda understandable, since I know a lot of LOTR kinda evolved and developed as it was being written, and iirc Faramir specifically was a character who wasn't originally intended to really be there or have such a prominent role as he did, he just sort of appeared as Tolkien was writing the Ithilien bit of The Two Towers. But for anyone now, anyone who makes an adaptation of LOTR, the book has been written, we know what's going to happen and which characters exist in it.

And I just feel like, it's not a big thing, but it would probably be good for an adaptation if Boromir talked about his family a bit. It doesn't even need to be that much and the details he tells about don't need to be that important or that relevant to the plot, but you could easily add in a few scenes here and there during the travel sequences where they're like, idk, just camped somewhere and talking about random stuff, and Boromir just mentions them. Like the scene begins as Aragorn is finishing telling some story about the First Age or whatever and Boromir just says that he'd get along well with Faramir, Faramir is also interested in old legends and history. Another scene, he talks a little about how Denethor rules Gondor, or his approach to military strategy, or something.

It doesn't need to be much, it could be just like three or four brief scattered scenes besides the necessary background and exposition at the Council of Elrond. Just enough to establish that these are people Boromir really cares about. He wants to make his father proud, he knows how heavy the long war has made the burden of leadership his father carries and he wants to ease that, or at least help carry his share of it. He worries about Faramir because sure, Faramir is a capable man, but he's also his little brother and war is dangerous and chaotic and anything could happen and he wants his little brother to be safe and happy. He cares about his family, he loves his family, and he wants to get back to them as soon as he can, preferably with something, be it wisdom, or weapon, or allies in war, that will help Gondor stand against Mordor, but even if that's not possible, what he really, really wants is to just get back to his family, to help his family and keep them safe.

You could, and you should, still also keep in there the talk about Gondor as a realm and its people. Those should still be important to him. But I feel like alongside that, you should add more strongly and clearly there the fact that he has a family and he cares about them a lot.

Partially because while the safety of a realm is a very noble goal and all, it's also kind of very abstract thing (at least to me, but I'd think I'm not the only one). An entire nation is a very big concept and kind of hard to grasp in a concrete way. But family, or like even in a more general way individual people that you really, really care about? That's familiar to most people, I think. Almost anyone probably has at least one other person that they'd be willing to go to really great lengths to help, whose safety and happiness they'd be willing to sacrifice a lot for.

So I think that would also make the temptation of the Ring somewhat easier to grasp, it would give a face to what he's afraid of losing. With the Ring, not only can he ensure Gondor's victory against Mordor, but also the safety of his family. With the Ring, once they've won, he can help his father ensure peace and order and security in every corner of the realm, even the distant borderlands. He can help his father, he can take on more responsibility than he did before, more of the burden and trouble he's watched his father carry for such a long time. And he can make sure Faramir is safe and happy, he can give Faramir whatever he needs or wants from his life, right? Without the Ring, he can't ensure they'll win the war, but even if Frodo's quest by some miracle succeeds, even if they win and Sauron falls and Gondor is saved, which is such a frighteningly slim chance already, how can he really be sure the people he cares about will survive? How could he protect them, really? Especially Faramir, who he knows is out there fighting? Just one hit from a sword in the right place, just one stray arrow, just one blow of a mace is enough to kill a man, and war is chaotic. It doesn't even need to be aimed at Faramir as an officer specifically, though it certainly might be, it could be just blindly hitting whoever happens to be there. It could happen so easily. It wouldn't be an irrational thing to fear, that Faramir might die in battle even if the war itself was eventually won.

Like, sure, even as it is, I can understand why Boromir is tempted by the Ring. I can understand his worry and fear. But the understanding is on this sort of a very abstract level, like I understand why he does what he does, and it is tragic, sure, but it's like... it's just a little too big. Sometimes it's a good idea to scale things down a little, to take individual characters and make a character's worry for them the sort of face of their worry about a bigger, more abstract concept. Like it would just make the tragedy hit harder for me if the story emphasized more the fact that there are also these specific people Boromir really cares about deeply, these are the people he wants to keep safe at any cost.

Besides that, another reason why I think Boromir bringing Faramir and Denethor up a few times more in the story is that that would establish them as characters to the audience and create certain expectations beforehand that you could then use to build on once we meet them later on in the story. They don't need to be 100% in line with what the audience sees, either, you can make Boromir's perception of them different than the way you present them to the audience, if that's something you wanna do. And in fact I feel like it might be one way to help bring more nuance into Denethor's character - something that I feel the PJ trilogy really doesn't have, but there are other posts about it that articulate it better than I could, so I won't go into detail on that yet - and giving us an idea of who Denethor was before grief and despair and Sauron's manipulation started really getting into him.

But yeah, just. This is one of the things that I would actually change from the books if I could make my ideal dream adaptation of LOTR. Just have Boromir talk about his family on screen a little bit more.